A new survey conducted by a pro-animal rights PAC reveals that at least seven Democratic members of Congress are willing to cross party lines and work with Republicans to investigate the possible origins of COVID-19, including investigating the lab leak theory.
Six of the seven Democrats said they’d support an investigation in response to the White Coat Waste PAC 2022 candidate questionnaire. All six of these respondents are up for reelection, and most are in competitive races. A seventh, Pennsylvania Rep. Brendan Boyle, tweeted that it was important to get “to the bottom of the origins” of the COVID-19 pandemic.
WCW sent the questionnaire to more than 100 candidates in competitive races, including members of both parties. The group supports candidates who are opposed to harmful animal testing. Eight Democrats responded, six of whom said they’d investigate a lab leak, one who didn’t, and one who abstained.
Pennsylvania Rep. Matt Cartwright, New Hampshire Rep. Chris Pappas, Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, Sanford Bishop of Georgia, Elaine Luria of Virginia and Eleanor Holmes Norton of D.C. answered yes, while Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. and Senate nominee John Fetterman answered no.
Investigation into the lab leak theory has been almost entirely pushed by Republicans. Members of the GOP in the House and Senate have held hearings on the subject and accused the Chinese Communist Party of covering up a lab accident that may have released the coronavirus into the population.
The Biden administration, meanwhile, has opted not to press China over the origins of the pandemic, deferring all recent questions to an intelligence community report from last year, which claimed that a lab leak was possible but not very likely to be the source of the COVID pandemic.
Proponents of the lab leak theory claim it’s too coincidental for the pandemic to have broken out just miles away from the Wuhan Institute of Virology where researchers had been genetically modifying bat-based coronaviruses in the years prior.
White Coat Waste has often criticized gain-of-function research, which makes pathogens more dangerous and transmissible. Dr. Anthony Fauci, who served as the de facto head of the COVID-19 response, has supported and funded that research through his career at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
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